In the mind’s eye, it keeps going on. The Rangers keep skating, and keep scoring, and once again, the Lightning finds itself backed up the edge of the cliff. New York scored seven in all Tuesday night, including a fistful in the third period, to break open a tight hockey game and turn it into a skating competition.

The Rangers, facing elimination, were once again the more desperate team. And now they return home to Madison Square Gardens, where they are 7-0 in Game Sevens. Momentum is on their side, and experience.

One thing they will not have is their sudden advantage over playing in Tampa Bay’s Amalie Arena. The Rangers have scored 16 goals there in their last three games, turning the lamp into a strobe light.

Tampa Bay has won twice in New York in this series.

“How do I think we’re going to respond?” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “We’re going to respond the same way we have every time our backs are against the wall.

“You’ve watched it happen all year. You know how they’ll come out.”

We’ll see. This Lightning team has been fairly resilient, and it has been at its best in these playoffs following games when it was at its worst.

“You know what? There is pressure on both teams,” said Lighting captain Steven Stamkos, who had a four game goal streak snapped. “I don’t care what spin you put on it. It’s Game Seven to get the Fainals. I think you throw everything out the window. It’s winner take all. We have experience playing Game Sevens, and they have experience. We’ll go at it, and it should be a good game.”

Despite the score, the Lightning felt as if it played fairly well in Wednesday’s game for two-thirds of it. It trailed 2-1 going into the third period, and the Rangers had only 18 shots.

In the third period, however, it was as if Tampa Bay was trying to tie the score at every opportunity, and the game got away from them. The Rangers scored three goals 4:12 to take a 5-1 lead, and after that, it was a shooting gallery. New York chased Ben Bishop from the game with 12 minutes to play.

For Bishop, this one had to be a disppointment. He had played poorly in Games 3 and 4, giving up 10 goals in the two games. Then he had responded with a shutout in Game Five. This was a return to the pain, however.

“I think for five straight periods, we played really, really well,” Cooper said. “We played defense. We created chances. We just didn’t turn pucks over. We thought we were playing a 2-1 game. Unfortunately, we weren’t winning 2-1.

“And I think in a matter of seven or eight minutes there in that third period, we gave up more scoring chances and turned over more pucks, more than we did in all of Game 5 combined, the 60-minute game.”

This morning, you can accuse the Lightning of whistling past a graveyard if you wish. The odds certainly seem to be in New York’s favor. But they were in Detroit’s favor, the Lightning rallied. Then they were in Montreal’s favor, and the Lightning almost let them back in that series. The entire playoffs has been a series of highs and lows.

“For whatever reason that’s the way its been,” Stamkos said. “Whenever we’ve had a low we’ve found a way to come back with a high.We have to look at it that way. No time to sulk about it. We got beat. No matter what the score was. We have a Game Seven.”

This time, everyone knows the stakes. We are down the final duel in the final scene.